Between Vespertines

Meteora, Hancock Park

RESTAURANTS • First Person

Next week, the doors to the waffle-shaped, extraterrestrial restaurant known as Vespertine will reopen in Culver City after a four-year hiatus. What has its chef and mad scientist, Jordan Kahn, been up to during the break? Meteora. 

Opened in Hancock Park in 2022, the chef’s sophomore tasting menu restaurant feels like Tulum inside. Stepping through the oversized bird’s nest framing the entrance, I was transported into a rainforest-like realm by way of an ethereal soundtrack, a Kahn trademark. (At Vespertine 2.0, Icelandic band Sigur Rós is reportedly orchestrating the “sonic ecosystem.”) 

Meteora’s dimly lit, copal-clouded interior is adorned with concrete benches and rattan chairs under lofty ceilings and wells of skylight. There’s also a gigantic selenite table anchoring the private dining room within the kitchen. While the decor exudes a primitive allure, the food couldn’t be more avant-garde. Biodynamic, heirloom, and wild ingredients are transformed by live-fire cooking (both wood and coal), meticulously plated in a modernist style. 

Memorable dishes included flame-seared oysters served with beef fat in a medieval cooking device called a flambadou, deep-sea scarlet prawns seared over hot stones, burnt Murasaki yam with smoked trout roe, and slices of Stonington scallop dressed with mezcal-glazed pineapple. The drinks menu is equally impressive, boasting complex cocktails and mocktails like a margarita made with grilled papaya juice, aged tequila, Haitian rum, sea buckthorn, and allspice.

Dining at Meteora transcends the ordinary. As for what kind of sensual, gastronomic journey Kahn has in store for us next? Watch this space(ship). –Victoire Loup

→ Meteora (Hancock Park) • 6703 Melrose Ave • Wed-Sun 530-11p • Reserve.